Reference in this specification to any prior publication (or information derived from it), or to any matter which is known, is not, and should not be taken as an acknowledgment or admission or any form of suggestion that the prior publication (or information derived from it) or known matter forms part of the common general knowledge in the field of endeavor to which this specification relates.
It is known to perform three-dimensional (3D) scene modeling by generating depth fields of a scene using parallax data derived from two or more images. In such processes, images taken of a scene from two or more imaging locations can be used to derive a stereo depth-map. The depth-map associates with every pixel in an image an indication of how far away the pixel's observed location is in the scene. Such depth maps can be used to determine the 3D shape of the scene.
Methods for deriving depth maps using parallax methods have typically been classed in two categories. The first category is commonly referred to as a “local method”, which calculates the depth for each pixel of the base image individually, not taking into account depth allocated to surrounding pixels. Local methods are fast and memory efficient but prone to incorrectly allocating depths to a given pixel.
The second category is commonly referred to as a “global method”. This method attempts to relate the choice of depth for a given pixel of the base image with the depth choices for immediately surrounding pixels. This way some consideration of the local continuity of a surface is taken into consideration when determining each and every depth and consequently the algorithm has a global perspective. Global methods are known to provide superior estimates of depth but at the expense of being many times slower and more memory intensive to compute than local methods.
Thus, there is still a need for depth estimation analyses.
Unless the context dictates the contrary, all ranges set forth herein should be interpreted as being inclusive of their endpoints, and open-ended ranges should be interpreted to include commercially practical values. Similarly, all lists of values should be considered as inclusive of intermediate values unless the context indicates the contrary.